


The Walking Wounded

by shealynn88



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Audrey gone, everything is different.  Duke tries to regain some of what he lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Walking Wounded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elynross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynross/gifts).



She disappears just when the whole town has learned to lean on her again.

Nathan is chasing shadows of her instead of trying to calm the growing unrest, and that leaves Duke. It's not something he wants to do, but it needs doing, and after three weeks of complete mayhem, he finally steps up.

He lets the troubled have meetings at the Gull, because they need somewhere to go and the Teagues...well, there's something weird going on there, and no one wants be in the middle of that vague animosity.

It's amazing to Duke that any person can cause this much havoc, simply by not being there...but apparently she's done it before, every time she's come and gone. Every time she's left this ache behind that takes years to fade...and then she comes back again and it starts all over.

He'd love to hate her for it, but even hate isn't as simple as it was before. Everything A.A. - after Audrey – every _one_ is different.

Nathan comes in for a drink one night, with that perpetual black cloud hanging over him.

Duke pours two shots and brings the bottle around the bar. He waits until Nathan's had three, gives it a little while to sink in and take the edge off.

“I miss her, too,” he says, throwing a shot down and pouring another.

Nathan looks at him, eyes burning black with emotion Duke can't even put a name to.

Nathan takes another drink.

“You realize, don't you, that the town is still here, right?” Duke asks casually.

“By which you mean...?” Nathan's tone drips with threat. Good. Duke's used to that.

“By which I mean that you have a job to do, still, and people that need your help, and I'm sick of picking up the slack. It's really starting to mess with my reputation.”

For a second, Duke thinks he's made progress – that Nathan is going to throw a punch and come alive...but the tension comes and goes, and Nathan just pours another shot.

“She really got under your skin, didn't she?” Duke asks. It's meant to have an edge to it, to torture, but his voice breaks in the middle and it loses the taunt.

“Fuck off,” Nathan says dully.

“Who can compete with that?” Duke asks quietly, and it's not meant to taunt this time – it's just the question that he's wanted to ask for months. “When no one else can even touch you?” He brushes his fingers across Nathan's wrist, his fingers, and feels the warmth there, the calluses, the tension. Knowing that Nathan doesn't feel it at all makes his stomach knot, and he starts to pull away.

Nathan grabs his hand suddenly, and grips it hard enough that Duke makes a noise of surprise.

“ _No one_ ,” Nathan says, holding his hand and staring into his eyes, full of hate and agony. “No one can touch me. No one can hurt me, Duke.” It sounds like a challenge. A threat.

Duke purses his lips, feels them draw into a bitter smile because the alternative is showing Nathan how hurt he is, and that just isn't an option.

“Too late for me, then, isn't it? Doesn't look like there's any part of you that isn't hurt already,” Duke says. He stands up to go, and hears Nathan speak softly.

“Doesn't feel like it, either.”

Duke sits back down. It won't do either of them any good, but Nathan was his friend, once. He was more than that. And Duke isn't ready to lose him, too.

“It hurt when she left. After her and Evie...Nathan, she chose you, but it doesn't mean no one else was part of her life. That she wasn't...important to the rest of us.”

Nathan watches him with a dangerous look in his eyes.

Duke shakes his head slowly, smiling. He knows better than to expect something different. “Of course. Of course you're taking this the wrong way.” The smile fell away, and he slammed a hand on the bar. He should be used to this, damn it, why did he think he could change it? “Why are you looking at me like that? I'm trying to be your god-damned friend!”

“You were never my friend, Duke. Not for the sake of friendship. I was a good cover for you. I was a riot when you were sticking tacks in my back. But we were never friends. I thought we were, but I know better now.”

It stings. More than Duke will ever admit. “You are a stubborn jackass, Nathan, and you always have been. You don't know a damn thing about me. You and your father were always better than me. Always hated me. The Crockers, those no good bastards, right? Fuck you, Nathan, if you're so damned sure how I feel.” It must be the drink – the one here, the few before...those drinks that have built up on nights that feel enormous and dark and alone...

It's the only reason he'd bring up a past long dead and buried. “You had me, Nathan, and you had her, and now neither of us have anything.”

Nathan flinches and then turns to meet Duke's eyes. “Don't compare yourself to me. You have a life. You have the Gull. You have all your new friends who don't know or don't care what you were. You can have a normal life, Duke.”

Duke grins, because Nathan actually seems to believe the crap he's spouting. “Can I, Nathan? A _normal_ life? That's bullshit and you know it.

“I can feel. Isn't that what you mean? I'm normal because I can _feel_?”

“What if I do?”

Duke sneers. “All feeling does it hurt. You don't know how lucky you are.”

Nathan stands up, a little unstable on his feet. “I don't even know why I came here,” he says, and he turns to go.

Duke shoves him, and it's not that hard, but it takes him down anyway. He'd be sorry if he had any left, but he doesn't – Nathan deserves what he gets – and all the things he doesn't.

Nathan stands carefully, and turns back. Very slowly. There is a darkness that clings to him, head to toe. He _radiates_ darkness. Like he's the only one Haven has ever hurt; the only one Haven has cursed and broken and chewed up and spit out.

Duke laughs when Nathan hits him – he's so predictable. He tastes blood, and it feels right. Right because this is what it has to be like for them. They're always at each others' throats, and strangely, this makes him feel like they might some day make it back to normal. As normal as things get in Haven.

He hits Nathan back because that's what they do, except that Nathan drops so one knee is on the ground, and he's not supposed to do that. Duke follows him down and puts a hand on his knee – he won't feel it, but he should be able to see it.

Nathan looks up, and his eyes are glistening. “I hate you,” he says, and his voice is thick with unshed tears.

“Me too,” Duke assures him, and pulls him forward, not caring suddenly about Haven or what they're supposed to be or what normal used to be. He knows what he wants – what he's wanted forever – what he thought he had years before Audrey came, before the Troubles, before things got complicated.

He presses his lips to Nathan's before he can say anything, knowing he won't feel it, that Duke can't possibly compete with someone who made him feel, finally. Not caring. They only have each other now.

Nathan breathes against him for a moment, breathes into his mouth, ragged, harsh breaths that sound like sobs, and then whatever has been holding them apart breaks, and Nathan's hands are knotted in his shirt and pulling him closer, and Nathan is licking his split lip and pushing him back and over, until it's Nathan, lying on top of him on the rough boards of the floor, pressing his spine painfully into the wood until he makes soft noises of pain. It slows then, just a little bit, and Duke wonders what it was that Nathan was looking for, what he got out of it. Was it those little pained sounds Duke made when Nathan bit down too hard? The taste of Duke's blood on his tongue? Or maybe there's something in his face that Duke can't hide when Nathan's like this. Some sort of truth that he keeps hidden so carefully most of the time. He hopes that's not it. He's not sure he can live with that kind of honesty between them.

But this is _something_. Something new and desperate and right...like all the battles have been leading up to this raw and painful moment where they're both laid out and broken, ready to be built into something new.

Like Haven, they're on the cusp of the unknown and bursting with potential.

Duke grins and drags Nathan's mouth back down to his.

The yawning unknown is nothing to him as long as he's facing it with Nathan.


End file.
